OOER value statement

The partners in the OOER project came up with a 'value statement' highlighting the positive aspects, drawn from recent literature, that may influence decisions in going forward with making educational resources open.

The group also came up with a 'pros and cons' list.

Teaching resource quality

• The quality of educational resources, as a whole, will be driven upwards due to competition, feedback and peer review.
• Individual staff are making their materials available on the internet already (i.e. YouTube, iTunesU, Flickr, etc.). An institutional policy and pedagogy/QA guidance is needed.
• You can gain invaluable information about which staff and students are using your educational resources.

Financial

• Time saved in not duplicating resources or parts of resources, with novel resources having a foundation to build upon (Yuan, 2009).
• Time saved in using an IPR and Patient Consent cleared repository of OER (Fleming & Massey, 2007).
• Promotion of an institution's teaching portfolio and recruitment of new students (Yuan, 2009).
• There is potential for new funding and revenue generation opportunities through exposure to new markets (Fleming & Massey, 2007).

Diversity

• OER may increase diversity in student applications to undergraduate programmes.
• OER may aid in widening participation (OECD, 2007).

Institutional

• OER development will allow comparison of institutional policies and will lead to development of UK wide best practices (IPR, Patient Consent) more quickly and efficiently (Fleming & Massey, 2007).
• OER portfolio and institutional brand image will be linked in the future (thus OER cost will become a 'necessary overhead') (Smith, 2009).
• Used as evidence of efficiency and value for money as required by funding bodies and taxpayers (Fleming & Massey, 2007).
• Potential students may view a portfolio of OER from a host institution and use, in part, to decide if institutional teaching approaches are compatible with their own learning style.
• An OER repository can be a means to an effective individual staff teaching portfolio of learning resources/activities.
• Increase in collaboration between institutions, including inter-discipline exchange (Yuan, 2009).
• Increased institutional publicity and reputation (OECD, 2007).
• If an OER culture is inevitable, such as directed by future funding body requirements, early adoption is preferable.
• The University retains ‘ownership’ of educational materials which are ‘licensed’ for others to use.
• A single place where materials are stored, archived, searchable and available from is created.

Student recruitment, satisfaction and retention

• Address specific student learning resource needs more rapidly by finding appropriate resources available from other institutions uploads to an OER repository.
• Students could access resources that have a different approach (visual, audio, text, etc.) in their teaching method and add them to their own personal learning environment to complement host institution resources.
• Potential students may view a portfolio of OER from a host institution and use, in part, to decide if institutional teaching approaches are compatible with their own learning style.
• Learning materials are made more accessible for an institution’s students and to others.

References

1. Li Yuan, Sheila MacNeil and Wilbert Kraan.  Open Educational Resources – Opportunities and Challenges for Higher Education.  JISC CETIS. 2009
2. Catherine Fleming and Moira Massey.  Jorum Open Educational Resources (OER) Report. 2007.
3. Marshall S. Smith. Opening Education. Science. 89 ;  323. 2009.
4. Giving Knowledge for Free: the Emergence of Open Educational Resources. OECD. 2007.